"Dead."
Valerius Costin drained the heavy silver goblet in his hand in one gulp, but the bitterness of the word still coated his tongue. The wine was supposed to warm him, but as the finality of his situation slithered into his gut he was chilled to the bone. He wondered then if anything would ever warm him again.
"What do you want to do, Valerius?"
He turned then, his gaze travelling up the steps to the palace entrance. An old woman stood at the top, her long grey hair rustling gently in the autumn breeze. Her ice blue eyes were sad as she waited for his answer.
"
Want
to do, mother?" he replied, his voice cracking as he stood from the bottom step and he swayed on unsteady legs before catching himself.
"What I
want
is for someone to tell me that my wife is alive. I
want
to walk into her chambers, kiss her, and then hold our daughter in my arms. I
want
to grow old with her!" He was shaking in his anger, in his pain. His voice reverberated against the marble columns and echoed through the atrium.
"But what I want is of no consequence, is it? No, only what the gods want. Tell me, mother, what did the gods want with my wife? What did they want with my Sorina?" he sneered. "Tell me!"
Viorica Costin descended the steps warily, approaching her son as one might a wounded lion. She shook her head sadly and rested a hand on his cheek. "One cannot say what the Fates would ask of us, my son. One can only hope to serve their purpose well."
"The Fates?" he asked, incredulous. "Were Sorina and I not Fated for one another? Were we not meant to be? It cannot be the same Fates which brought us together that now so ruthlessly tear her away from me!"
"We cannot know," she repeated patiently. "We must serve them in whatever capacity they have need."
A large solemn woman appeared at the top of the stairs then. In her arms was a small bundle of cloth. It took a moment for Valerius to believe his eyes. The woman was holding a swaddled newborn. Sorina's child. His child.
"She lives? Our daughter lives?"
His mother smiled sadly. "She is strong, Valerius, and even more beautiful than her mother."
"She lives," he breathed and fresh tears fell.
"Valerius," his mother said carefully, "the prophecy." Her gaze searched his and she felt simultaneously relieved and sorry when she saw recognition in his eyes. "You know what this means. We are the last of our kind, my son.
She
is our only living female now. We have to protect her. The vampires
will
come for her. They will kill her. We have a decision to make."
He marched up the stairs away from her. The woman who held his daughter drew back and new fury boiled within him. "You would keep my child from me, Pavla?"
She nodded. "Anything to protect her, my liege. She is not safe here."
"That is not your decision to make, servant!"
His mother hurried to stand between him and the wet-nurse. "You're right, Valerius, it's not her decision. It is yours! Choose life for your daughter! Send her away from here!"
"Away from me, you mean," he growled. "I am no danger to my child. I wish only to protect her. Would you have me send her away if Sorina had not...had not died giving birth to her?"
Viorica shook her head. "You know that there would be no need for this if Sorina were still here. Euric and his vampire horde have only allowed us to live because of Sorina, because he feared her powers. If the prophecy is true, this child will be much stronger, much more powerful than her mother. He
will
strike before she's matured. He
will
succeed and she will die. If you love her, let her go!"
Valerius ran a frustrated hand through his thick black hair. "I could take her far away from here, I could protect her."
"They must believe that she is dead, Valerius. They must believe that she died with Sorina, else they will go searching for her."
It was going to kill him, but Valerius knew his mother was right. He had to send his child away. "But where does one hide a princess?"